


From What We Could Become (from what we'll never be)

by SylphofScript



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mild Language, honestly nothing worse than what happens in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-11-09 07:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20849795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylphofScript/pseuds/SylphofScript
Summary: From what was once just a little scene that took place between seasons 2 and 3, expanded into the aftermath of 3.Billy said, “Bitch, I lived,” and the world followed.And by the world, I mean Steve.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Started writing this before Season 3 became a thing. Abandoned it when Season 3 released. Got renewed energy to just finish the damn thing when Season 4 was green-lit.
> 
> I'm still so, so mad about how dirty they did that poor kid.
> 
> Please let me know if I'm missing any tags! Considering what happens in the show, I wasn't sure exactly what needed tagging.

It was a cold night, the night Steve had fled his house and found himself in a tailspin of comrade with the last person in Hawkins he ever would have thought.

A freezing night, really, cold enough for him to realize he was underdressed two steps out his front door and too full of his own stubborn resistance to admit his mistake to turn around and go back in for the jacket the night begged him for.

It was a cold night, and it had started with an argument.

It had started with an argument with his parents about his grades, specifically—and really just his father, actually—and how he wasn’t going to be going to college that fall on any semblance of a prayer, no matter how hard he tried from that point on.

“All this money means nothing if you don’t work to keep it, Steve!” his dad had bellowed, swinging his arms wide to gesture at everything around them. Steve had wanted desperately in that moment to question him if it was worth it if they never got to be home to _enjoy_ it, but his teeth had been clamped so tightly shut that he couldn’t get a word out at all.

Instead, he’d turned and left with nothing but his car keys in his hand and his wallet in his pocket and decided he didn’t want to be home that night. He didn’t want to be anywhere that night, actually.

He needed to be alone.

He _needed_ to be in the one place he had never seen anyone haunt before, because no one but a bunch of ragtag kids knew of the place, and it was past their bedtime anyway.

Fifteen minutes later, Steve turned his car into the town’s junkyard and found both what he always expected to find when he came by, and what he never did.

It was easy to know what to expect at a junkyard, even after the fact he’d used it to kick the shit out of some demonic monsters straight from the underpits of what might have been the Russian equivalent of Hell, so he didn’t dwell on that part. Broken bits of cars and the charred remains of a bus, he could handle, any day of the week. Steve was so beyond the point of being surprised at what this shit town was capable of conjuring up that he could take whatever else it decided to throw at him.

He was from Hawkins, Indiana. Born, bred, raised, and bloodied to the bone. He could take Hawkins, and he didn’t even bother freaking out over whatever happened for more than a few minutes, because so much else has happened that anything else might as well happen, too.

No, Hawkins wasn’t the issue. Steve expected Hawkins.

What he didn’t expect, was not Hawkins-birthed. And, maybe, that’s why it had managed to catch him off-guard.

What he didn’t expect to find in the secluded corner of the abandoned junkyard he drove to was Billy Hargrove, perched on the hood of his car and staring out into the copse of darkened trees that bordered the area like they would tell him their secrets if he waited long enough. He looked up when Steve pulled his car up, headlights off, and then cocked his head and slid off his hood when the engine cut. Steve stared back from the comfort of his own seat, debating on turning around and outright leaving, but he didn’t like the idea that would plant in Billy’s head if he did. Steve might only have a few more months until he was out of High School, but there was still plenty of time for Billy to knock Steve down a few dozen pegs. And, while Steve honestly didn’t give a shit anymore, he didn’t want to have to bother with it in any semblance of the matter.

So, Steve heaved a big sigh, pulled his keys out of the ignition, and hauled himself out of the car, only hissing slightly when the ice hit his veins.

He kept quiet as he rounded the front, his hands crammed deep into the pockets of his jeans, brain frantically thinking of something to say to the douchebag who had fought Steve and then been left to his own devices when Steve had ended up being dragged away by the kids. Beyond what the kids had relayed in scattered, layered detail as they all spoke at once to be the first to tell him, the only thing Steve understood was that Max had fixed Billy good by almost neutering him, and that really had been the extent of the details he had been given.

Which begged the question: did Billy even have any idea of what had happened? Steve didn’t think so—but he also wasn’t sure if Billy remembered anything. Steve knew _he_ didn’t. Not all of it, anyway.

(Concussions were nothing to joke around about. He remembered a lot, but there were a few blank spots here and there without enough memory to give a good picture. He tried not to think about that, though, because it made him sweat, and it’s not like he could fix it anyway.)

Steve made it a few paces around before Billy looked up again, and Steve suddenly realized Billy’s face looked something like pounded meat in the yellow light of the street lamp.

Blue and black purpled the skin all around his eye socket, red crusted in a stream from his nostril down to his chin, where it smeared away into a violent rash of color along the sharp curve of his jaw. The corner of his lips looked swollen and red, giving him a sort of lopsided frown. Someone had kicked the shit out of him, and he hadn’t even bothered to clean himself up. It surprised Steve into stopping, blinking a few times as he took in the colored details of Billy’s mystery encounter.

Then Steve realized Billy looked about as startled to see Steve here as Steve was to see him, and the annoyed greeting he had planned died on his tongue.

Billy’s mouth popped open slightly with what Steve took to be surprise, only for a cigarette to be lifted up and slotted in, Billy’s other hand appearing to flick a lighter to life. Steve, unsure if his stubborn demeanor would allow him to simply leave, only watched.

“Harrington,” Billy greeted in that gravelly way he had when he wasn’t being a smooth asshole, once the end of his cigarette burned a cherry of light in the encroaching dark, sounding just a bit more on edge than Steve was used to.

Steve leaned back against his car, hip knocking sharply against the headlight and the buckle of his belt scraping and throwing any potential for a cool demeanor right out the window. He winced, then scrambled to cross his arms and reattempt.

“Hargrove,” Steve finally returned, his hands crammed awkwardly under his armpits, more for warmth than anything else, and immediately he thought, _This is so stupid._

Billy’s lips curled, the blood flaking with the movement, and Steve had to repress the sudden urge to punch him again, just for the sake of it.

“Funny finding you here,” Billy drawled, taking his cigarette out and examining the end as a plume of smoke drifted from his nostrils. “Can’t get in with your pretty girlfriend when she’s chosen the nerd, so now you’re sulking in this little shithole? How fuckin’ lame can you get?” Billy paused, eyes flicking up, and Steve realized in that moment that he hated that Billy’s eyes were blue. Because _Nancy’s_ were blue, and he didn’t come here to think about Nancy. “Or are you here to let me shove your ass into the dirt again?”

Steve stared at Billy then, watching those heavy, blue eyes, and decided right then and there that he wanted none of it. There were other places to be—he didn’t need to deal with this, and he definitely didn’t want to.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, more to himself. He’d put up with enough shit that night, and he could handle whatever Billy gave him in return for pussy-footing it out of there.

Steve twisted away, ready to throw himself back into his car and get the fuck out of dodge when Billy’s coarse voice called out quietly, “Damn, I ain’t gonna do anything to you. Stand up for yourself, King Steve. Stop lettin’ me shit all over your territory, it’s beyond pathetic.”

The words might have been the kind to bite, but there was nothing behind them this time, and Steve stopped short in confusion. Billy wouldn’t look at him in favor of lighting up a cigarette when Steve turned his head back, and a silence stretched between them. Finally, Steve rattled off some mumbled curses and trudged back to where he’d been leaning against the hood of his car.

“You’re gonna freeze your gonads off,” Billy remarked the moment Steve was settled again, gesturing down with his cigarette.

“Yeah, well,” Steve idled. He shrugged. “Was kind of in a rush to leave the house.”

Billy only raised an eyebrow, sucking on his cigarette, saying nothing. Steve found he was oddly grateful for that.

Silence fell, allowing Steve a moment to do what he’d come to the junkyard in the first place to do—clear his mind and not think, at least, for the moment. There was nothing to disturb the quiet, save for the occasional car passing and the faint noise of the wind jostling the trees, and Steve realized, while he didn’t anticipate summer by any remote means, he did miss the song the crickets sang if only to fill the void he struggled not to fill himself. There was quiet—and then there was _alone._

But Steve wasn’t alone. Not this time. It didn’t stop him from feeling it.

He shivered, shoulders rucking up to his ears, and didn’t dare look Billy’s way, just so he wouldn’t have to see the look of _I told you so._

He knew he was an idiot. He had plenty of people telling him so at every turn, himself included.

“Do you ever get the idea we’re just on this shithole of a planet to do nothing but die?” Billy all but mumbled, just when the quiet was starting to feel like it was far too much, his fingers tapping out a rhythm against the metal hood that Steve didn’t recognize. “Like there’s something bigger out there and we’re just fodder for the monsters?”

Steve looked over at him sharply, too caught off guard to feign the cool he suddenly wished so desperately to have incorporated into the move. Billy glanced back at him from the corner of his eye, the tip of his cigarette reflecting orange and red against his eyelashes.

Steve’s mind flipped into overdrive, racing with the possibilities of Billy being involved with the Upside Down, the laboratory, the demodogs and the—

But then he realized how stupid that all sounded, Billy having anything to do with any of it when he’d been knocked out cold during the most important parts, and he shoved it all away in favor of a long sigh as he leaned back on the hood of his car and felt the way his teeth ached with the cold.

“Are you always this grim?” he inquired thoughtfully, looking back out to the scene as he calmed back down. A car ambled past, exhaust sputtering. Billy kept silent. When Steve dared a glance again, Billy was still looking at him with those heavy eyes, but the cigarette had moved from his mouth to the pinch of his fingers.

“What’s the point, Harrington?” Billy asked. He had a roughness to his voice Steve couldn’t place. Like he was angry at the way things had fallen into his court, and all he could do was stand there and question it.

Or, maybe Steve was giving Billy too much credit.

“The point of what?” Steve replied. “The point of anything?”

“_This_,” Billy hissed, then tossed his cigarette down. He didn’t bother stamping it out, and Steve had to fight the urge to do it himself. The town didn’t need more happening to it, not now. But Steve didn’t move. Billy threw his arms wide, stepping away from his car to take a step towards Steve. “What’s the point of this, Steve? This town, this world, this _life_. Does anything change?”

Steve watched Billy warily as he came closer and closer, planting a hand flat on the hood of Steve’s car when he got close enough and leaning in further. He smelled like cigarettes and beer, and his eyes were so bright they almost glowed in the dingy streetlight.

“You’re getting philosophical on a D-average student here, Hargrove,” Steve warned as he leaned away reflexively. Billy’s lip twitched in response, but he didn’t make any move otherwise. The crusted blood on his nose looked extra gross this up close, Steve noted offhandedly.

Then Billy laughed, dry and sarcastic, and lifted his palm from the car and pressed it to Steve’s chest. It took all of Steve’s willpower not to flinch at the sudden movement. It was still too soon.

“I don’t want to die in this stupid town,” he hissed quietly, and Steve thought that was the most honest he’d ever heard Billy be. Even if he’d been flayed open right then and there by one of the creatures the Upside Down spit up, Steve doesn’t think Billy could have been more laid bare than by that single, haunting statement.

And Steve found he had nothing worthwhile to say in response to it. Because, sure, he didn’t want to die in this shitty place either, but at the rate he was going, there was nothing but Hawkins in Steve’s inevitable future. Hawkins was in his bones. Billy didn’t share the same rooted fate.

Billy dropped his hand, ducked his head, and turned away, hiding his face behind the golden mane of his hair. Steve’s chest burned with the lost contact, and he struggled not to cover the spot with his own hand.

“You got plans when we get out of that hellhole of an education system?” Billy asked idly once he was back at his car, another cigarette in his mouth.

Steve recovered himself and snorted.

“If you want to call menial labor a plan. That mall they’re almost done building?” Steve continued when Billy only gave him a side-eye that he took to mean inquiry. “My old man isn’t happy with what I’ve done with my grades so I’m sentenced to get a job there when it’s up and running. So, probably The Gap or some shit. I don’t know.” Steve waved his hand as if waving the idea off. He didn’t really want to think about what his summer would hold, or what his dad thought of the fact Steve was barely going to graduate at the rate he was going, never mind anything resembling college.

Nonetheless, he managed to get caught up in himself enough to remain unaware of Billy’s strange silence until Billy finally did speak, and Steve realized in the same moment that too much time had passed for it to be casual.

“So your dad’s a piece of shit, huh?” Billy said conversationally, but even Steve could see past that. There was a relation in that silence that came before, and Billy spoke as if he were asking a question he needed the answer to.

Steve thought about wanting to call out the real question there, the “like mine” that was ghosted at the end of the inquiry, but he knew better than to do something like that.

It wasn’t his business and, really, Steve didn’t give a shit anyway. Billy wasn’t his friend. Billy had nearly killed him, and Steve had left Billy to deal with whatever came in his wake.

Similar circumstances or not, Steve wasn’t ready to let that part of his guard down. So he doesn’t call the question out.

“Grade-A asshole,” Steve quipped instead, throwing Billy a finger gun.

The side of Billy’s mouth curled up into a wry smirk, cigarette and all. He coughed a laugh, billowing smoke in large clouds. “Monsters, Harrington. They’re all monsters.”

Steve looked out to the road, over to the dark, dark trees, up to the endless, glittering night sky, and he sighed, his teeth clacking together with cold despite himself. “Yeah,” he finally said simply. “Yeah, they really are.”

“Think that’s what we’re going to end up being?”

Steve thought of the way his father had yelled at him. Of the way he grew up in an empty home, filled with money and wanting what that money couldn’t buy him.

He thought of Billy’s temper, of his beaten face, of the words, the insults, he sometimes spoke that told volumes more than what was said. How they always seemed sharper, harder, than they should from a guy who changed on a dime. How they seemed like they weren't his insults to begin with. It was a facade.

It was none of his business.

“No,” Steve breathed, and the air fogged with his heat. “Not in a million years. I might be an idiot and an asshole and stuck in this shit place for the rest of my life—” Steve paused, breathed, and felt something like acceptance seeping into his bones as he continued “—but I’ll never be like that.”

Silence met his declaration. Steve looked over at Billy, and Billy looked back with his bruised eyes set into a hard stare. His lips were pressed thin, jaw clenched tight, and, for a moment, Steve thought maybe Billy was going to jump him again.

But all he did was nod. Just the once. Firm, resolute, filled with a meaning Steve couldn’t discern. And then he sucked his cigarette until the paper all burned away and tossed it to the ground as he pushed up from his car and twisted towards the driver’s side door.

Steve watched, his shoulders still tense with anticipation of an attack he was pretty sure wasn’t coming, as Billy threw open his door and leaned in. He rummaged around for a moment, half in, one knee up on the seat, and then, before Steve knew what was happening, a black mass was flying his way and nailing him in the face.

_“Shit!”_ he cursed sharply, scrambling to remove it, only to find it was—a jacket? Oh.

“Don’t make it weird,” was all Billy said before he dropped into his seat and revved his engine to life and peeled out of the junkyard, leaving Steve to do nothing more than watch him go, red tail lights flooding the area an appropriately hellish red.

Steve looked at the jacket. Pulled it on. Wondered how the hell he was going to return it without making it _weird_ before deciding he didn’t really care.

And then Steve thought,_ Maybe that guy isn’t so bad._

And then he jumped in his car and left to sneak back into his house that night, prepared to deal with whatever the hell Hawkins had left to give him before his time was up, and his life moved on.


	2. Chapter 2

The summer does not go as planned.

He gets a job at the ice cream parlor after getting rejected from both The Gap and RadioShack, and has to wear a stupid sailor uniform with an even stupider sailor hat, but, in retrospect: he’s kind of glad all of that ended up happening, because he got the great wonder that was Robin out of the deal, and he wouldn’t give her up for the world. They were a duo against the universe, having taken on Russians, monsters, and two snot-nosed children for longer than twenty-four hours all on their own. There was nothing that could break them apart, and Steve wouldn’t have traded that for the security another job might have gotten him.

(Because they never, ever would have figured out that code without Robin’s help, regardless of what Dustin might protest when questioned on this. They also might have been under Russian rule with Demodogs prowling their streets right now without Robin’s help, but that one Steve didn’t have the hard evidence to back up, so he never mentioned it. The point is, in retrospect, the uniform was fine, because it got him Robin, and she’d probably saved them all.)

Steve loved Robin. He wasn’t _in _love with her, not by a long shot now that he knows he’s not even remotely her type, but he loved her in what he’s almost certain is now the only way he knows how.

He loved her like he loved Nancy. Like he loved Jonathan. Like he loved Dustin and Lucas and El and all those little shitheads he’d give his life for if they only asked.

(And, okay, had a good reason for. Because he knows them—they’d ask for the stupidest reasons, because they think he’s more invincible than he actually is. It’s all those lost fights he’s managed to live though, he thinks. Taking a hit didn’t make him indestructible, though, and he wasn’t so sure they knew that.)

He loved them. He wanted to protect them. And he wanted to make sure nothing ever got to them before he could get to it first.

He thought that might be stronger than the love he had for only Nancy once upon a time. That maybe this love evolved from that one, and now he can’t go back. He didn’t _want_ to go back. He wanted to protect the ones he loved, to keep loving them in that way, and that was more than enough for him.

Asking for more was just asking for trouble, and he’d had plenty of that for his lifetime.

Never mind sometimes he still got into it with Robin, but it was nothing like what they’d dealt with at the mall—at the tunnel, with the dust swirling around them, at the old Byers house, with the lights flashing death in their eyes, at the junkyard with the bus hollow and dark and the Demodogs crawling in—

It was nothing like Demodogs and Mind Flayers and crazy Russians tracking them down and hurting them when they didn’t know how to tell them the lie that was obviously wanted as their truth.

No, the trouble was nothing like that. Robin wouldn’t do that to him.

Robin meant a lot to Steve. He wouldn’t trade her for anything.

Nor would he trade Jonathan and Nancy, joined together or forced apart.

Jonathan and Nancy, the duo Steve should have seen coming but was blindsided by in a moment where he’d forced himself to look forward while Nancy was still looking back.

Jonathan and Nancy, who he’d shared a strange bond with since that moment he showed up at the Byers’ looking to apologize and wound up sticking his foot firmly in the hellhole that lurked under Hawkins’ bed. They’d kicked a monster’s ass together, just the three of them, all as one entity and not just as a guy just trying to protect some kids he kind of liked occasionally, and that had stayed with him—with them—through it all. Steve had given Jonathan a new camera to ease his mistake, and Jonathan had gotten the girl along the way. And Steve had lost her.

And life had moved on regardless.

But—things didn’t really change after that. Sure, it was kind of weird when Nancy started prioritizing Jonathan over anything involving Steve once she’d broken up with him in favor of Jonathan, but she still sat with him at lunch during the days before graduation. She still talked to him on the days she had to pick Mike up and Steve was asked by Mrs. Henderson to get Dustin. She still asked him to study together—_actually_ study—before graduation happened and Steve didn’t even make it into technical school and they all went for their summer jobs and Steve started seeing her little brother more often than he saw her. She still gave Steve the time of day. She still treated him like they were friends—like they were okay—and Steve was too worried about losing her again to say anything about it.

It just … all had Jonathan tacked into it.

Jonathan had been there, too, at the lunches that usually consisted of only the three of them in a sea of people that wanted nothing to do with their business, at the talks where he picked up Will and sometimes Lucas when they all came barreling out of the middle school like it was their last day and they had places to be, at the study dates where he’d help Steve fail a little more than he’d meant to, because Nancy was the smart one, and sometimes Jonathan was guessing just as much as Steve.

He’d been there during the few times Steve saw Nancy while he worked, and they both looked just as morbidly content with the way things had gone as Steve felt on the inside.

Nancy still gave Steve the time of day, but now, so did Jonathan.

And Steve found he didn’t mind it. Not even a little.

He didn’t see them much following the attack on the mall, but he’d call them, and on the day when Jonathan had said goodbye he hadn’t shown up because Keith had made him work (and, really, he was terrible at saying goodbye anyway, so it worked out fine for him) and Jonathan had called him from his hotel room after calling Nancy, just to talk movies and music, because his family was driving him nuts and Nancy had terrible taste in both and, god, he just didn't want to be on the road anymore.

And they were okay. Not fantastic, not with the Byers family gone with El in tow and Hopper dead and gone, but … okay. And okay was decent, considering the circumstances.

Okay meant Mike and Dustin and Lucas and Max still hung out and bothered him at the movie rental place. Okay meant Dustin still called him in a panic when he thought he was messing something up with his holy-shit-she’s-real girlfriend and Steve had to assure him he hadn’t done anything wrong, it was only the distance making it hard to tell (not that he’d ever been there, but he was good at bullshitting, and he was always right in the end anyway, so what did it matter how much experience he had there?) and it all would settle by the time he talked to her again. Okay meant Erica had bullied them into teaching her how to play Dungeons and Dragons and Steve had been forcibly included into the sessions as NPCs that were typically cut from the narrative forty-five minutes in and replaced immediately, keeping him on his toes and busy with trying to think of new personalities and the wildest backstories he can cram into his allotted five-minute introductions when he was actually supposed to be shelving movies, which Keith would end up getting on his shit about, rendering it less okay, but still more okay than accidentally reliving Russian interrogations when zoning out instead.

Okay meant things moved on,_ they_ moved on, and the hurt faded, slowly.

It faded from Steve, who still had night terrors about the things he’d gone through deep under that mall. From Robin, who sometimes showed up to work too shaken by being alive to operate and allowed Steve to cover for her while she pulled herself together in the backroom. From Lucas, who visibly wilted with relief when Dustin tried to get Steve to let him rent certain R-rated monster movies and Steve denied him and told him to pick up the PG-13 movies or get the hell out of his store. From Mike, who moped for weeks after El’s departure before everyone suddenly realized he was also upset, and maybe even moreso, about losing Will, too. From Max, who had nervous issues for months and months after the attack because of what it had done to her and her brother, because of what the Mind Flayer had wrought upon her family, and because of what she had almost lost. From Billy—

From Billy, who had almost given his life to save them all.

Something Steve never expected out of the whole ordeal, because, last he checked, Billy was working at the public pool and only frequented the mall to pick up chicks on the days he had off. He wasn’t anywhere near the mall when the Russians popped up and the gigantic, gross as fuck monster came out of nowhere, but, once again, according to the kids and their method of filling in the blank spots for him (which, seriously, they needed to work on, because he could only audio-process maybe two at a time, and there were _six_ of the little shits), Billy been crucial to both its making and its undoing, and it had nearly cost him everything in the process.

He’d been in a coma for weeks afterward, according to Max specifically, relayed to him one afternoon when all the rugrats came clamoring into the movie rental to peruse movies he knew their parents wouldn’t actually allow them to watch. Given a number of blood transfusions, surgeries to remove foreign masses left behind, and a whole lot of drugs to help him recover from whatever the monster had done to him. He’d only barely made it out alive, and it was a miracle in itself that he hadn’t died from shock after it had all been said and done.

Somehow, Billy had made it. Steve wasn’t so sure he’d have been able to do the same.

Steve didn’t visit Billy in the hospital—not before he’d finally woken up and not during the several weeks, nearly months, he’d had to stay after in order to both relearn how to live his life and to be kept an eye on just in case he fell back under—because that would have been weird, and Steve had specifically been told not to make it weird.

Steve might not be the brightest, but he knew how to keep a word. Never mind he never actually promised anything to Billy, not in so many words. That was beside the point.

(He also barely knew Billy. Hell, he was closer to his little sister than he was Billy and—okay, wait, that just sounded straight up creepy. It wasn’t like that. He was friends with all the kids, and anything Robin said about it would go in one ear and right out the other, because, annoying as they were, the kids were kind of awesome. They’d seen the same shit Steve had over the years, and they’d come out the other end laughing and living as their coping mechanisms. Where Steve had lost a girlfriend for doing the same, he found he fit in with the ones who were maybe missing a few pegs of maturity on their scale but handled things in a way Steve could understand. You couldn’t fault him for finding comfort where he could.)

He doesn’t have a reason to visit Billy—so he didn’t. And it wasn’t weird, because they’re not friends. They’d be more like mortal enemies, if Steve didn’t think that was a stupid, nerdy way to put it.

(That’s how the kids put it. Steve wasn’t thrilled, but he also didn't bother correcting them, because what was there to correct?)

And, slowly, Billy recovered. They all recovered slowly, but, compared to theirs, Billy’s recovery came at a crawl. Steve encountered more than one instance where he’d be in the middle of picking the kids up only to find out, when he reached the third or fourth house in the line, that the movie night or the ice cream run or the Dungeons and Dragons session had been cancelled that night because they’d had another emergency at the hospital regarding Billy, and Max didn’t want to be the one missing if he didn’t make it through that time.

Max stayed by Billy’s side as much as she could, and Steve kept an eye on her from afar.

And Billy recovered.

And, honestly? Steve was relieved when he’d heard Billy had finally opened his eyes, when the worst hurdle had been crossed, and now they were in the safe zone. Because no one deserved to die from what he almost did.

No one deserved to die at the hands of the thing that used them for their own gain, not even Billy. And with his awakening, Steve could finally cross that guilt off his list.

* * *

Strangely enough, the first time he saw Billy again was during the Fall Bash the school was throwing for the middle and high school kids the week before Thanksgiving break in lieu of the tragedy the summer had been, when he was dropping Max off at her home to get ready for the night and rolled up to the house to find Billy sitting sprawled in a chair on the porch and smoking.

“He’s not supposed to be out of his wheelchair,” Max growled almost before Steve could register what he was seeing. She pushed Dustin out of the way as she climbed out, raising her voice to yell, “You’re not supposed to be smoking, either!”

Dustin, the only one left in the car to drop off, shared a look with Steve as Max stormed her way over to her brother.

“Only got one day out, gonna make the best of it,” Billy called back, lolling his head against the chair as Max stomped up to him. “They’re shipping me back in tomorrow.”

Max stood over him, hands on her hips, her hair obscuring her expression. “They’re not gonna let you out again if you don’t follow the rules.”

“S’ the thing, Maxine,” Billy drawled, his voice going scratchy and almost inaudible from where Steve sat listening in his car, “rules aren’t gonna define me. Not when they’re all I have.”

Max deflated. Her arms fell to her sides, and her head dropped. She seemed to say something to Billy then, because Billy’s mouth moved in a response Steve was too far away to catch. Then she lifted her head, turned, and called, “See you at six!” and then she threw a wave and bolted into the house.

Billy’s eyes snapped to Steve, and Steve’s returning wave sputtered and slowed to a halt.

“Well, well. My lucky day today, isn’t it? King Steve, in the flesh. Mr. Hair Harrington. Look at me, I can’t meet your standards anymore. Not so pretty now, am I, Harrington?” Billy called, his voice sounding like his throat had been scrubbed raw with sandpaper. And, well, he wasn’t wrong.

He was gaunt and pale and thinner than Steve had ever seen him, skeletal in what was likely his hospital-approved outfit even from the distance Steve was at, and his hair had been nearly shorn completely off during his coma and had so far only grown back to a short, golden curl. Steve had to admit Billy just looked—

“—like shit,” Steve called back. “Should have taken a picture of you before you lost your mane, huh? Not much competition without it.”

Billy blinked at him, the cigarette in his mouth drooping slightly like he was shocked Steve wasn’t playing back with his kid gloves on, and then his lips curled up into a slow, slow grin.

There he was. _That _was the Billy Steve knew. Not this skeleton creature that wore Billy’s skin.

“I’ll get it back,” Billy replied, his voice low and gravelly. “You’ll be sorry, then.”

“Will I?” Steve taunted, because he couldn’t read a situation for shit, and Billy always called for sass or sarcasm or some combination of the two. It only made Billy’s grin deepen, and not in a good way.

“See you tonight, Harrington,” Billy said, and it sounded like a threat.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, because he was picking Max up again for the dance, and he suspected Billy would still be around. “Do me a solid and don’t croak before I pick up the kid. It’d really ruin the mood.”

“Sounds like a challenge.” He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out. “You’ll owe me one if I manage.”

“Deal,” Steve agreed without processing what was just said, and then he pulled out of the driveway and left.

* * *

“The hell was that?” Dustin asked the moment they were no more than ten feet away from the house.

“Adult stuff,” Steve told him, then pushed his cap down to shut him up before he could ask more.

* * *

Billy wasn’t on the porch when he picked Max up again that night.

Max came sauntering out, her fire-red hair done up in curls that spilled around her face, covered in glitter that Steve knew would embed itself into the seats of his BMW and only ever come loose at the times when Steve needed to have glitter on him the least. Which, as far as he was concerned, was all times.

She dropped into the passenger seat with a _whumph_, the layers of her bead-covered skirt jangling together musically, and bowed at the waist when Dustin let loose a wolf-whistle that shrieked in Steve’s ears almost painfully.

“To the ball, Jeeves!” she called in a bastardized fake accent that Steve thinks might have been New Yorker, might have been British, was definitely settled somewhere in-between. Steve scowled at her all the same.

“You’re not even paying me for this.”

“I have half of a Mars bar,” Dustin offered, shoving the sloppily-wrapped candy bar half up into Steve’s face as he pulled out of the driveway. Steve jerked away and swatted it out of his line of vision.

“I am _driving_, here!” he announced, loudly, and it only made the kids start to laugh, shedding glitter and hairspray in their mirth. He picked up Lucas, looking lanky and dapper in a shirt of bright red beneath a vest of charcoal, as his final carpool victim, and then he hauled their asses over to the high school for the actual event.

It was the middle of November, the date they’d picked for the dance. Nestled somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving, with the Snow Ball still on the horizon in the winter, it was already damn cold outside, and Steve made a point to warn the kids about fucking around outside without their jackets as they tumbled from the car to meet Mike, who was loitering by the front. Steve could see Nancy hovering just beyond the front doors to the gym, much like another time ago when she’d helped out with Jonathan at the Snow Ball, but a quick turn of his head tells him she was talking to someone, and his horn honked obnoxiously when he leaned a little too far to try and see a face.

Everyone turned to him then and, oh, it’s Robin she was talking to, dressed up in an amber dress Steve has never seen in his life, her hair a stylistic bird’s nest on top of her head. Steve waved a little awkwardly in return to the knowing grin that sprung to Robin’s face, decidedly ignoring the looks the kids were giving him as he threw his car back into drive and left the vicinity. He wasn’t technically supposed to stay for the dance—he wasn’t even dressed for it in his jeans and sherpa-lined coat—but he’d be lying if he didn’t say he kind of wished he’d thought to consider going and helping out now that he was aware all two of his friends were already there.

He wondered, only for a moment, why Robin hadn’t mentioned the fact she was helping out, before he remembered she was in band, and they were the ones that usually got roped into helping with those kinds of things, unlike Steve, who never did anything of extracurricular importance beyond basketball while he was in school, and they never made the athletes do that kind of shit.

He left the school, and he ended up driving around the town for a while instead of returning to his empty house, where he’d do nothing but sit there and wait to be called and needed, like too many of his nights went nowadays.

He drove around town, through the neighborhoods, and he tried not to think of anything but thoughts that couldn’t haunt him later on in the night when he couldn’t sleep. He kept his window open as he went, allowing the cold bite of the air to keep him alert in the way he didn’t want his fear to, and he just—drove.

And that was how he found himself back at Max’s house.

That was how he found himself back at Billy’s house, and how he found Billy back on the porch, another cigarette between his lips, in the chair he’d been scolded by Max for sitting in, with a thick-looking blanket covering his lap and his head tilted at an angle that almost made him look like he was dead.

And as his luck went, Billy noticed Steve before Steve could notice where he was, otherwise he probably would have left as fast as he possibly could and hoped never to be spoken to about it. But, no. Steve didn’t have that kind of luck, and Billy hollered him down before Steve could even rub his brain cells together long enough to spark a thought of recognition.

“Hey, Harrington!” Billy called, his voice scraping along with the stress of the action, filtering through Steve’s open window, and Steve stopped his car just outside of the mailbox. He was more startled by the beckon for his attention than anything, only suddenly aware just then of how he was traversing the streets like a zombie behind the wheel. “You just can’t stay away from me, can you?”

Billy sounded okay, Steve noted immediately. He even looked okay this time, from the distance Steve could see him at.

But Steve knew better. He’d been around that block too many times to even try at thinking Billy was okay. Steve knew he wasn’t, not really—not underneath the facade they all wore to get on with their lives in a world that just wanted to keep the truth buried deep.

And he understood, suddenly and sharply, why Billy was out in the cold instead of sitting inside the house where the wind couldn’t bite his lips to blue and ruffle the California hair that had once been the envy of many a Hawkins resident. It was the same reason Steve kept his window down as he drove along—the same reason Steve sat in his car and let the cold seep into his bones before he returned home some nights to his empty house that made him feel alone even on the nights, few and far between as they were, when his parents were home and kept the place warm.

Steve understood, and he hated every moment of it, because, now, he wanted to take Billy away.

The ache to do so was sharp and slick, like a knife sliding up beneath his ribs and going straight for his heart, and Steve loathed every moment of it. He didn’t like Billy—he didn’t like Billy _at all._

But he understood him. And he knew, then, that he _needed_ to take Billy away, if only for a little bit. To take him away from the house that Steve now knew, thanks to El, had been a less than a haven to the guy that had saved them all. From the house he was trapped at, only able to get away as far as that front porch would stretch, because there’s no way in hell he was allowed to drive.

Steve didn’t want to be the good guy. Steve wanted to be petty, leave Billy on the steps suffering and lower than any person had the right to be like Steve knew—he _knew_—Billy really was, because that’s what Billy would have done to Steve had the tables been turned.

But Steve _was_ a good guy. That was the problem. That was the thing that separated him from Billy. That was what made him different, despite the myriad of similarities between them—that was what made him _King Steve, the once-was high school douchebag_ and not _King Steve, the guy who never grew out of it_.

That was why Billy had been so hard to detect. Why Billy had almost died.

That was the difference between them. Steve was a good guy, and Billy was—not. Not until the end, when they all thought they weren’t going to make it out alive. And Steve wasn’t so sure that even counted.

Steve was a good guy, and he wasn’t going to just fucking leave Billy on the steps to rot in his own aftermath.

So Steve threw his door open, left the engine running, and stomped his way over to the porch.

“Get in the car,” he ordered half-angrily, almost before he was close enough to be heard. Billy only looked at him strangely, not moving a muscle, so Steve jerked his head to the vehicle in question.

“Now, why in my right mind would I ever agree to do something like that?” Billy asked, _sounding_ like Billy, but with an undertone was too hollow to really be him at all. Something Steve couldn’t have heard before, not at the distance he’d been, but couldn’t hear anything but now that he was close enough.

Billy wasn’t whole anymore, the monster had taken too many pieces of him away, and his armor was too cracked to hide the shell he’d become from Steve.

Steve was a good guy—but no so good as to pretend Billy’s patented lie.

“Because you’re bored,” Steve offered. “Because you hate my fucking guts and want to see what kind of twisted you could knot me in the hour I’m declaring is now mine. I don’t know.” Steve shrugged. “Just get in the car, man.”

Billy stared at him, blue eyes framed in those lashes Steve remembered seeing for the first time and thinking, _Shit, those things belong on a girl, _and said nothing. Not at first. Not until Steve had shifted his weight and finally looked away.

“I don’t hate you, Harrington,” Billy corrected then, quietly, without ever sounding like he was breaking character, and then he slowly pulled himself out of his chair, the blanket sloughing off to the side to be forgotten, and stumbled down the steps carefully, gingerly, betraying his mask, before silently sliding into Steve’s car.

Steve followed behind, diligently ignoring everything about Billy that wasn’t quite what he used to be, and then, without a word, shut his door and took off into the night.

* * *

He returned to the junkyard, because he didn’t know where the hell else to go.

Billy huffed a scrape of a laugh, tinged with a taste of surprise, when they turned off the road in the direction they both then knew they were going in, but he didn’t say anything about Steve’s choice, and they made it up onto the dark, frozen expanse of familiar ground without a word exchanged between them, the windows open and the frigid air turning their teeth to glass.

Steve threw himself out of the car first, wrenching his engine off with enough force that he knew he’d regret the rash action of haste later, but he didn’t want to sit there and watch Billy be anything but what Steve remembered him as, so he didn’t stick around to witness it. He ambled to the front of the car immediately, kicking his door shut behind him without looking back, and breathed warmth into the cavern of his cupped hands as he leaned his hip against the nose in a vaguely familiar move he was almost certain he’d pulled before in that very place.

He heard the sound of the passenger door creaking open, listened as the heavy, slow sound of boots crunching on the cold dirt painted Steve the very picture he’d been running from, and waited, patiently, for Billy to join him, only wincing slightly when the passenger door was shut hard enough to rock the whole car, a product of what Steve had no doubt was a frustration he couldn’t quite understand but had absolutely no ground to judge. Not when he hadn’t lived what Billy had. Not when he couldn’t really understand.

He wasn’t that kind of person anymore. What that made him, he didn’t know, but at least it wasn’t _that._

Billy already had a cigarette between his lips by the time he was situated against the hood, his arms stretched back and his too-thin torso on display beneath a white shirt that would make anyone else shudder and burrow deeper into their jacket, but only made Billy seem more alive.

They stood in silence from there, Billy sucking down the red cherry of his smoke and Steve staring at the cold expanse of the sky above them, the stars bright in that way small town skies had the ability to render them, and he tried, haphazardly, to recognize any of the constellations Jonathan had told him about once upon a time. It didn’t work, but staring at the shapes his brain made up in lieu of his failure still calmed him from the manifestation of pure tension he’d been since the moment he called Billy out and brought him there. He tapped his fingers against the hood, lips mouthing the words to a song his conscious brain isn’t conjuring up.

A snort from Billy brought him back, and he turned to see the butt of his cig falling to the ground moments before a heavy boot fell on it and crushed it into the dirt. “_The Cure_, Harrington?” he teased, blue eyes bright. “Never struck me as that kind of dickhead.”

Steve rolled his eyes and looked away again. “Well, now you have a new kind of dickhead to add to the array of dickhead labels I have no doubt you’ve slapped onto me since the moment you met me.” Steve spread his hands in a show of himself. “There’s plenty of real estate for more, just pile them on. Dickhead Harrington. Has a nice ring to it.”

“Ooh,” Billy cooed, all salt and syrup and sting. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw his burnished golden head loll back until it was out of sight and then all Steve could see was everything from the shoulders down. It made Billy’s collarbones stick out like shards of steel beneath his skin, a pale, puckered line suddenly in sharp contrast from where it poked out from the fabric of his shirt. The sight of it gave Steve the chills. “Someone’s got a bit of a bitching bite to him tonight. Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?”

“Life,” Steve spat back, then cringed when he realized how pathetically edgy that made him feel. “I’m fine,” he clarified quickly, though he couldn’t keep the tone of annoyance out of his voice. “It’s—” he started, struggling, only to be surprised when Billy huffed, sharp and angry, and cut him off completely.

“Don’t lie to me, Steve,” he said quietly before Steve could collect himself. His head was still reclined back, neck still on display to the sky, so skinny his Adam’s apple looked like a painful knot beneath the thin skin, but Steve could suddenly see all the tension held within it.

Steve opened his mouth. And then, he shut it again. And that’s when Billy dropped his head and looked.

His eyes were blazing when they met Steve’s, the blue a glacial cold amplified by the purple bruises of unrest that marred the skin beneath them. He looked furious in a way Steve had never seen before, and he’d seen Billy angry in a myriad of ways before the monster had almost taken him away. He didn’t look just angry, Steve realized—he looked vindictive.

“Look at me,” he growled, his voice breaking to such a low quiet that Steve almost couldn’t hear him, “and tell me the fucking truth.” His hand snapped out into the air between them. Steve flinched at first, then snapped his gaze to it. Billy had it palm down, and the fingernails of his scarred fingers were red and blue with the cold. “You can’t tell me, _me,”_ he pushed, and his tone had turned to pure gravel, “that you’re fine, Harrington. You can’t fucking _lie to me._ Not when I’m like _this.”_

And Steve felt his heart skip before coming to life again with a painful jolt. Because Billy was right—Steve was being an idiot.

“Habit?” Steve tried, and then looked up to meet Billy’s eyes again. They were minutely wider than they’d been from before Steve had looked down, and Steve wasn’t sure if it was because of Steve’s reaction or something else. “I’ve been through this three times, Hargrove,” Steve explained, because he was suddenly unsure of how much Billy even knew, despite having almost lost it all to the horrors Hawkins had within it. “It’s easier to lie when no one would bother to believe the truth.”

That seemed to deflate Billy, and Steve watched, a little shocked, as lines formed along the planes of Billy’s face and the hand dropped away. Who would have guessed that telling the truth would be the thing to tame him?

_Or it’s because he understands now,_ a voice inside Steve’s head offered, and Steve resolutely pushed it away. He was nice, but he wasn’t about to be that kind of understanding.

Billy turned away again, shoving his hands into the back of his waistband and leaning back against them on the car. He looked like he should be freezing alive in the white shirt and sweatpants Steve was pretty sure Billy would have never willingly worn had the hospital not insisted, because Steve’s nads were starting to feel the bite, and he was dressed adequately enough this time around.

A silence fell between them, broken only by the faint stuttering sounds of the cars that ambled past on the road that edged the junkyard, and Steve let it soak into his bones, wondering, yet again, what possessed him to bring _Billy Hargove_, of all people, along with him when other options had probably been available. He thought about offering to just take Billy back when Billy spoke up, sounding more like himself than he had the last time he’d spoken.

“Ain’t karma a bitch?” Billy croaked, huffing a raw laugh and startling Steve back to attention.

Steve blinked back. “What?”

“Said I didn’t want to die in this town,” Billy explained. “Then almost fuckin’ croaked on Hawkins soil.”

The memory flickered to life in the back of Steve’s mind. Billy, in a cloud of nicotine on that cold night, saying, _I don’t want to die in this stupid town._

And then he very nearly did.

They very guy Steve thought could get away because he wasn’t from Hawkins had _almost died_ for it. Hawkins might not protect its own, Steve knew that almost intimately, but it hunted those who didn’t belong. And Billy had never quite fit in.

Karma could fucking choke.

“You couldn’t have seen this coming,” Steve tried. He couldn’t look at Billy right then, not with the beaten face of who Billy had been that night branded behind his eyelids as the memory gained strength. Steve still had that jacket, stuffed somewhere in the back of his closet. He’d never found a way to give it back without it being weird, and Billy had never bothered to ask. Hadn’t even spoken to him again since that night beyond an ice cream order, during which they both pretended not to know each other.

Billy snorted. The noise sounded strained, almost gritty. Steve thought then that Billy would never sound like the old, endlessly smooth Billy again, and something about that made him feel guilty. He shoved it away.

“Seen chemical meat monsters suckin’ down my soul for their weird Russian takeover?” Billy spit sardonically, and Steve wondered how much of that was relayed from the kids and how much was pure memory. “Yeah, wasn’t exactly poppin’ up in my third eye.” He paused for a moment, and then Steve was certain he was being stared at by those heavy, steel eyes, but he didn’t turn to confirm it. “But you knew,” Billy finished slowly. “And you didn’t think to fucking warn me.”

Steve jerked, a myriad of refusals springing to his tongue and trying to worm their way out, none sounding just convincing enough to bypass the accusation being thrown at him. Billy stuck up a hand before one could be chosen, stopping Steve in his tracks, mouth slightly ajar and excuses rendered dead in the water.

“Pulling your goat, Harrington,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t have believed you if you tried.”

Steve wilted despite himself. He wasn’t sure what about Billy’s accusation had gotten to him so easily, but he had a feeling it had close ties to the guilt he felt about the whole event. Like it was his fault in the first place anything that happened in Hawkins happened at all—like he wasn’t just another stupid fuck living in a town that raised him, unable to find a reason to flee even when the nightmares just kept coming to life around him.

“Joyce had the right idea, leaving,” Steve said, almost to himself.

Billy frowned. “Byers? Yeah, no shit. She’s got the kid who can move shit with her mind and the little zombie kid that channels demons, what the hell kind of person harboring those things would stay in the place that caused them?”

Steve blinked at Billy, caught between wanting to know how the hell he knew about El _and_ Will and wanting to question why he, of all people, was being civil, reasonable to the point of understanding even, about a person he didn’t even know.

Billy decided for him and said, with a shrug, “The kid without the teeth has loose lips.”

“_Dammit_, Dustin,” Steve growled. He didn’t ask how or where or when Dustin might have been in the same room as Billy at any given time. He didn’t want to know.

Billy huffed his raspy laugh, fishing something out of the pocket of his sweats.

“So, you gonna ditch this shit place then?” Billy asked, another cigarette between his blueing lips. “With all the bullshit that’s happened, no one in their right mind would stay. If I weren’t shackled to the bed, I’d be long gone.”

“Where else could I go, man? This is my home.” Steve held his arms out. “Hawkins is all I’ve ever had. Yeah, it keeps trying to kill me, but it should count for something that I’ve made it out every time.” He shifted, ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t leave what I know I can make it out of.”

Billy winced, actually winced, and Steve was reminded sharply of the scars he bore. Shit. Way to be insensitive, Harrington.

“I didn’t—” he started, then stopped when Billy gave him a look that screamed, “Are you being serious right now?”

“I survived, too,” Billy said slowly, and it sounded like a threat. “Don’t fucking pity me for making it out alive.”

Steve stared at him. Billy stared back.

He looked a disaster. Thin to the point of being almost emaciated, gaunt behind the smoke that plumed from his lips, his golden hair gone and his blue eyes nearly swallowed in insomniac bruises, scars crawling up his skin and winding along his neck where it was exposed to the cold air—he looked exactly as he was: a walking survival story to something they all had somehow lived through. Only where Hawkins had kept most of their scars and hurts on the inside, Billy it made sure he would never be able to forget what he had done, even in the dark of the night around them.

Billy had survived like they did—but not without more than just the consequences the rest of the living had to face. Billy should have died like Barb and Bob before him, and Hawkins wasn’t going to let him, or anyone else, think otherwise.

_Fuck,_ Steve thinks, getting annoyed with himself before he’d even moved, _that just isn’t fucking fair._

Steve stared at Billy, and Billy stared back. And then Steve shucked off his coat and held it out.

Billy stared down at it warily, then looked up at Steve from beneath his lashes.

“Just take it, Hargrove,” Steve half-whispered, tired of it all and wanting to offer Billy some sort of peace for the what the world had done to him. It wasn’t anything great, but it made Steve feel better.

Still, Billy hesitated. Then, he reached out and took the jacket and shrugged it on, immediately looking out of place.

Steve knew Billy wasn’t going to thank him, but he was surprised when Billy opened his mouth without looking up again and said, “I guess this is our truce, then?”

“Yeah,” said Steve after a beat. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Good,” Billy clipped back, shoving his hands into the pockets of the jacket and turning back to the car, “I’m fucking tired of fighting.”

Steve watched as he opened the door and slid into the seat, only finally looking up at Steve with his eyebrows raised as if to silently ask why the hell Steve hadn’t followed. Steve only stared for a second, unable to catch his brain up to the task at hand. Then, he moved with a jolt, blinking rapidly like he’d suddenly been brought to life.

“Yeah,” he said again, this time only to himself as he started to open his door. “So am I. Shit, so am I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This still might not be the end. I'll mark it as finished because, at the moment, it is, but I can't promise I won't come back and write more, likely with shippy stuff happening. I'm super fucking annoying like that :D


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